Answering Islam: Preaching What They Do Not Practise?

In one of their pages, Answering Islam had made the following claim with the clear intention of “poisoning the well” where Muslim sites are concerned:

On “Answering Islam” we will purposely not use atheist articles against Islam, since we know ourselves more connected with Muslims on the basis of our common belief in one God, than with atheists who are mocking both of our faiths. Our goal is not the attack and destruction of faith in God, but that our Muslim co-believers in the Creator God will come to recognize the full truth of what God has revealed about himself and His will for our life.

(emphasis are our own)

The rest of the page goes on to either debase or discredit Muslim websites for their dependency on “atheist” material and preaching about the lack of “conscience” on the part of Muslims to abandon atheist material (notwithstanding the fact that most of the links on their page are either broken or no longer exist).

Unfortunately, Answering Islam does not seem to practise what it preaches. Of late they have been relying on atheist material from hostile anti-Islamic websites in order to further their goal of “the presentation of the truth and genuine Christian scholarship”. Is it considered “the presentation of the truth” to rely on material from which they themselves denounce its source — known atheist websites openly hostile to Islam such as Freethought Mecca, Mukto-Mona and Faithfreedom International — to the extent that they are being used freely and widely throughout their articles?

One of their team members — despite the so-called “official policy” of Answering Islam to never resort to atheist material — even had the audacity to state in an e-mail dated January 21st 2004, as follows:

Ah huh, sure you will. You meant to say that you will begin your Spring Comedy Tour soon. See how Answering Islam, FreeThought Mecca and FFI expose this fraud…

So much for their touted “reliance” upon genuine Christian scholarship. The e-mails we have bolded above belong to three prominent team members of Answering Islam: Sam Shamoun, “Silas” and Jochen Katz, respectively.

It is also clear that despite the (worthless) “pledge” of Answering Islam, they have used atheist literature for many years against Islam. For example, a prominent atheist author they are fond of quoting is the Marxist-influenced Iranian, Ali Dashti. Here is what Jochen Katz said five years ago when defending his use of Dashti in a newsgroup posting dated 02/07/1999:

Obviously, his expertise on the Old Testament is somewhat lacking. :-) That doesn’t mean his knowledge of the Qur’an and Islamic history is similarly shallow. I never recommended his book for learning about the Bible.

Hence, this begs the following question: If we Muslims are not supposed to use atheist material because they reject the concept of God, then why does it make sense for the Christian missionaries to make use of material from groups who openly reject their religious belief system, i.e. the Jews, in their attacks against Islam? The Jews, though they do believe in God, openly reject the Prophethood of Jesus(P) in toto and their literature are riddled with the most abusive and insultive words against him and Mary(P). Yet, the Answering Islam team have an uploaded version of Geiger’s book on their website many years ago!

We at bismikaallahuma.org are firm in our stand that valid scholarship — regardless of whether its source is Muslim, Christian or otherwise — will be used to defend Islam from the missionary onslaught. As much as we disagree with the fundamental beliefs of Atheism, Judaism, etc., we shall not hesitate to quote from them if their argument is proven valid with the proper scholarship backing up a particular argument. If “Answering (Attacking-) Islam” wishes to use material from the heathen who are even against their faith, that is totally up to them. But why accuse and lambast Muslims for something which they themselves adopt and use freely? Is this the case of a pot calling the kettle black?

In conclusion, it is clear that the issue here is not whether Muslims are sourcing material from the “heathen” or otherwise, but that when their arguments get sharper from relying on genuine scholarship (no matter the source), the missionaries have no answer to them and therefore resort to poisoning the well. Even if Muslims do use atheist material, it simply means that they are simply adopting “Answering (Attacking-) Islam’s” methodology, and that those behind Answering Islam are proven to be hypocrites when they demand that we do not use their methodology. Furthermore, their deception are also exposed when they lie about not using atheist sources because it “contradicts” their belief system, and yet they still use works the likes of Dashti and even anti-Christian sources to attack Islam. So why is it okay for them to use such sources and not okay for Muslims in general to follow their methodology?

The author is the co-founder and executive editor of Bismika Allahuma. His personal blog may be accessed at Pendapat Kritis.

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1 Comment

Muslims should not go to such anti-islamic sites insted they should completely ignore them not even write to them.Answering islam is preaching exacting opposite things about islam which muslim dont paractice.